Roddenbury hillfort to undergo major work to repair damage caused by off-road biking.
Roddenbury hillfort to undergo major work to repair damage caused by off-road biking.
Details of hill fort on Pastscape
[ST 798439] RODDENBURY CAMP [GT] Roddenbury Camp is a univallate hill Fort, (150 yds by 75 yds), in the N.E. corner of Longleat Wood. Only a scarp remains of the bank on the north; the ditch has been filled up on North and West. The entrance seems to have been on the west. Roddenbury hill-fort occupies a prominent hill-top position. It is in a plantation of young beech trees with dense undergrowth of brambles and bracken and cannot be adequately examined. [See illust (b)]
It appears from the AP's to have been of triangular plan but only on the E. side is the rampart and ditch well preserved. There is a short section of denuded rampart on the W; elsewhere the hill fort has been destroyed by earth digging. It is uncertain whether the gap for a bridle path in the western side is an original feature although the approach from the W. is
relatively easy.
On RODDENBURY-HILL, about a quarter of a mile north of Longleat, and close upon the confines of this county with Somersetshire, is a small earthen work called Roddenbury-Camp. It has only a single ditch and vallum, with two entrances on the east and west. Near it, on the western side of the same hill, is a smaller circular work, bearing the name of Hays-Castle. The whole of this eminence, which forty years ago was a naked waste, is now covered with a profusion of trees.More at
Roddenbury Hill has lately been the scene of a most barbarous murder...
books.google.co.uk/books?id=pi1JAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA303
in 'The Beauties of England and Wales' volume 15, by John Britton and others (1814).
This small univallate fort is smothered in trees but its location cries out for a camp and is very obvious from local vantage points like Cley Hill, and it overlooks Longleat. The ramparts are in the shape of a round-cornered triangle, and in one place the 1.6m bank and 1.8m ditch create an impressive defence. There's been some sand quarrying which has disturbed the earthworks and the inside, which according to the SMR on Magic was probably carried out in the 19th century.